The Tale of Redbeard and the East Wind
by Missing Tales
Summary: „Nothing made me. I made me. Redbeard?" (Sherlock Holmes, The Abominable Bride) When they were boys, Mycroft would tell his younger brother stories about the East Wind and the mighty pirate Redbeard, but the fairy tales of a highly functioning sociopath were never to include heroes or fairies. However, they defined what Sherlock became in the end. Warning: Spoiler for final Season4


**Redbeard and the East Wind**

_a Mycroft fairy tale_

_._

It was past bedtime and his little brother wouldn't stop whining. Afraid of ghosts his mind had chosen to forget, he lay awake, his breath hitching rapidly into a blanket that he had pulled up to his nose.

"Don't go, Mycroft!"

His young, scared voice halted Mycroft's steps as he tried to leave the room. Now, Mycroft looked down on his brother, with his curly, barely kempt hair and tears already forming in the boy's wide eyes.

"What have I told you about emotions, brother mine?" he asked, sighing softly at his stupid, slow little brother.

"They are weaknesses, a human error, and I should not let them guide me," Sherlock answered, lowering his head in shame.

"That is right, Sherlock. Always remember that. Remember what happened to Redbeard!"

The breath caught in his brother's lungs, and the brave little smile faltered for a second. Would he finally remember?

"What happened to Redbeard?" Sherlock asked, and Mycroft slowly closed the bedroom door with a click. Their parents needed not to hear what he had to tell Sherlock. They would not understand that he was being merciful. That any other alternative would be worse. He neared Sherlock's bed and pinned him with his stern, unwavering gaze.

"The East Wind got him and took him away," he said, watching Sherlock closely. But the infantine features gave no sign of recognition at this name. So he continued. "Let me tell you a story, Sherlock; the story of Redbeard and the East Wind."

Sherlock shrank back, deeper into his blankets, but with eager anticipation on his innocent face. In fright and in hope for a good bedtime story. Sherlock really was the slowest of them all. "Redbeard was a pirate, wasn't he?"

Of course he would ask this; Sherlock always had loved pirates. What a ridiculous thing to love, all this waste of time.

"Yes, he was," Mycroft agreed, because somehow Sherlock was right. He sat down on Sherlock's bed, his fatty fingers already fumbling with the switch of the bedside lamp. If Sherlock loved pirates a little too much, then surely Mycroft loved pies a little too much. Everyone should be allowed a guilty pleasure, he concluded, even geniuses like them.

"Don't make it dark, Mycroft!" Sherlock begged.

"It is a dark story, Sherlock; it is not me who made it dark," he said and killed the light.

In fact, it had been Sherlock who had first come up with this. To keep up with his brother, he had started to create something he called a "mind palace". To remember as well as Mycroft was able to remember things, as well as _the other_ had been able. To store away his memories, never to forget them. Or, in this case, to lock them away, never to remember them, was more like it. But for the mind palace to work, he would need the darkness at first. Nothing to distract him from memorizing. Nothing to make him open those doors that should be shut forever. And now Mycroft would make him fear those rooms as he, Mycroft, feared _the other,_ the third Holmes, that should never be named again.

And thus he began his tale.

* * *

"Redbeard was a pirate, wild and ruthless, and he braved the seven seas like no one ever had before. There were no waters he could not steer through, no storm he could not conquer, and whatever he wanted, he took. Be it gold or gems, men for his crew or maidens for his joy, he robbed the traders' ships blank, wasted what pleased him, and sold what he wouldn't need at the nearest harbour. No one dared to fight him, and no one could outwit him, for he was clever and cunning and always two ships' lengths ahead of the authorities.

And when he anchored to sell his stolen goods, he lay a trail of riddles for the harbour guards, a trail of bread crumbs, leading them away from him and keeping them busy with minor crime. He knew everything about crimes, Redbeard, so he blinded the authorities with hints of knowledge, and they would never be the wiser of his true identity, his true intentions, busied chasing minor pawns. For Redbeard, all it took was a lonely cap, forgotten somewhere on a bench, or the telling grains of cold pipeweed ash, and he knew enough to find a foolish culprit. He–"

* * *

"But that is impossible. No one could be that clever!" Sherlock interrupted, doubt strengthening his voice to a condescending singsong.

"Redbeard was," Mycroft said irritably. "And I am, and so could you be if you only tried hard enough. Do you want to tell the story, or shall I?"

This made Sherlock hastily shut his mouth and widen his eyes, afraid Mycroft might have lost interest in telling the story that began so promisingly. Outside, there still was no sign that their parents were awake, so Mycroft continued.

* * *

"Redbeard and his crew prospered because Redbeard never let himself be sullied with emotion. Until one day he was. And since that day he has fallen prey to the East Wind.

One day, Redbeard captured a woman. She was the most beautiful woman to ever lay a foot on his ship, but that was not what captivated Redbeard. She also had wit and courage and cleverness, and she would not let herself be intimidated by his superior intellect. When he threatened her, she laughed at him, and when he bound her to the mainmast to sail her to the slaving markets, she threw riddles at him that he could not solve. And whenever he begged her to explain the riddles, she would laugh and say: "If you can't play this game, the East Wind will come and get you!" And Redbeard could not sell her into slavery, for he needed the answers for her riddles, and it drove him mad that he could not answer them. He started to become obsessed with her, thinking of nothing else, and when he next anchored in a harbour, he let his guard down, and half of his crew died because of his error. He barely escaped with his life and no wares sold.

But while he was busy trying to solve the woman's little riddles, he failed to discover the real riddle. For the woman truly was a witch and she had cursed Redbeard. And the day came when he finally had to admit, he had fallen in love with her and the little riddles she threw at him. He could not sell her and could not leave her behind because, he had to admit, he depended on her.

That was the day the East Wind woke up. It blew in strong force and it filled every sail and every cloth on his ship and forced Redbeard into a storm that he had never known before. He fought and he struggled and his skilled crew died and drowned, but when he was alone again, his ship protected him and carried him to shore. Being alone was what had protected him, and now the East Wind died down. Yet there, on the shore, the woman stood, somehow freed from her bindings at the mainmast and she waved him onto land.

Redbeard knew nothing of the land, for the sea was his true home, but there she stood and she smiled and Redbeard trusted his heart more than his head. He left his boat and set foot on the lonely beach of Musgrave Hill. The East Wind was silent and silence surrounded the rotten, rundown manor that throned on sharp cliffs, where the woman now led him towards, smiling and waving and singing.

"If you're searching for the answers to the riddles, Redbeard, look inside," she lured him and Redbeard believed her. But as soon as he reached for the handle and opened the main doors to Musgrave Manor, the woman laughed and the winds regained in strength. She transformed, now bare of her mask, suddenly hideous and terrifying where she once had been beautiful. "The East Wind will come and get you, Redbeard!" She laughed her terrible laughter. "Deep down below, sixteen by six, and under we go!" she sang, her arms widespread, welcoming, enchanting.

Redbeard could not understand, but now, once the doors were open, there was no turning back and the East Wind forced him inside the empty manor, where only ghosts lived now. Six ghosts stood there to greet him and the doors swung shut.

. "What does the graveyard show?" asked the first.

. "Where do the lost ones go?" asked the second.

. "Who will prey down below?" asked the third.

. "Why does the East Wind blow?" asked the fourth.

. "When will the death bestow?" asked the fifth.

. "Too and too, give the answer now. Fight to fight, answer now, showing you truly know," demanded the sixth.

Their voices strained at Redbeard and he, who could answer every question, could not answer theirs. And he searched his mind for answers and he searched the rooms for answers, for the ghosts would not quieten down.

In the first room there was a bent iron cross, leaning against a deer's head. "The bent cross leaning against the bow of the horns. A crossbow and a deer?" Redbeard mused. He was not good with land animals. He only ever sailed the sea. Suddenly the deer opened his dead eyes and Redbeard bolted back to the door and the cross bolted and pinned the deer's head at Redbeard's feet. "The game is afoot, the hunt is opened. Always game. What… what does the graveyard show... it shows those who have fallen prey?" Redbeard grew in confidence as he reached this conclusion. So he cried out: "It is the weak ones, those who let themselves be hunted instead of being the hunters. The graveyard shows the UNWORTHY!"

The first ghost quietened, but it did not disappear. It only watched him in silence.

"Am I right?"

"The East Wind takes them all in the end," the witch replied and he took it as a yes.

Now the second door opened and in the second room there was a collar and a leash and nothing more. "Where do the lost ones go?" the second ghost asked sadly.

"Leash and collar, they are for a pet?" Redbeard guessed. The collar and leash sprung to life, a Barking and a Whining filled the empty room and then there would have been silence again, if it weren't for the sobbing of a child. Redbeard didn't like the sound of the sobbing.

"Caring is not an advantage," the witch said mockingly, but he did not care about a pet he never had.

So he shut away the sound of sobbing and he answered, "When you lose a pet, it is dead. The lost ones go to death! The answer is DEATH!"

The second ghost quietened but gave no indication of leaving.

"Am I right?" Redbeard asked.

"All lives end. All hearts are broken." The witch smiled sadly and led the way.

The third door opened, and in that third room there was a cage, but it was empty. Around the cage there lay dirt, and it lay as a heap that was moving. And Redbeard was scared and would not enter the room, for he knew nothing of the creatures of the earth and only knew about those of the sea.

"What lives down below?" the third ghost repeated and repeated and repeated and Redbeard covered his ears but to no avail.

This, for Redbeard, was an easy one, because he remembered. "A DEMON," he said. "Down below there lives the demons that prey on the weak!" He still remembered the monsters beneath his bed, when he had been a young boy. "The demons that lie hidden and that need to be locked away in the cage!" On his words a demon escaped the dirt, furry and monstrous, with claws and fangs, and it charged at Redbeard, but he fought it with his strength and his wit, and he managed to trap it back in its cage. The third ghost quietened, but it, too, would not vanish.

The fourth door opened, and in that fourth room, there was a strand of hair, a mirror and a toy plane, riddled with scratches. "Why does the East Wind blow?" the fourth ghost asked, louder and louder with every repetition.

"A broken plane," Redbeard observed. "A female's hair, young, a child maybe. Probably a plane crash? The East Wind, was it made to keep a plane from falling? Was it made to save a girl?" Redbeard knew nothing about planes; he only ever sailed the sea, never the air. His words conjured a violent storm and the storm tore the plane out of his hands and whirled it around, smashing it against the mirror, which shattered and broke into a million pieces. Then the plane fell to the floor, lifeless again. "A strand of hair, a mirror. Twins, perhaps? No, it's never twins. Aesthetic hair, aesthetic reflection, a crashing plane, saving a girl, staying alive, stasis, the East Wind, static wind, aerodynamics carrying the plane, aerostatics keeping them up. Staying, stasis, status, aesthetic girl, plane crashing in failing aerostatics, statics, that's it! The wind blows for the laws of STATICS!"

And the fourth ghost quietened and came to stand next to the others, who already waited in silence.

The fifth door opened, and in that fifth room there was nothing, and only the fifth ghost repeated its riddle over and over again. "When will death bestow? When will death bestow? Death bestow? Death bestow? When will it now? Will death when bestow?"

But Redbeard could think of no answer and there was nothing in the room and the ghost awaited his answer, five, two, five, or under he would go. And he knew a lot about going under. Going under the radar, going under the sea, hiding, drowning, losing.

"When will Death bestow?" the ghost yelled, but it was erratic and the words didn't make any sense and it didn't add up, because nothing was predictable and Redbeard could not think because it was too erratic and because he could not deduct what would happen and he was scared but fear was a weakness.

So, desperately, he cried: "It's just random! It doesn't make any sense! It's RANDOM!" And the fifth ghost took that as an answer and it quietened and the door to the fifth room closed.

"Too and too, give the answer now. Fight, too, fight, answer now, showing you truly know," said the sixth, but there was no other room that opened.

"Unworthy, Death, Demon, Statics, Random?" said Redbeard, repeating his answers, but he could not think of the sixth, the one that would complete the row. Five, two, five, under he would go. He could not understand the row that made no sense to him.

"That is because you look, but you don't see!" The witch laughed. "You are unworthy and the East Wind will come and take you and it will pluck you from the earth."

"I am not scared of wind!" Redbeard, the mighty pirate, cried, and the witch laughed.

"Don't make yourself into a hero," she said. "Heroes don't exist, and if they did, you wouldn't be one of them!"

And the wind that rose with her words was no normal wind. It was a terrible force, called to cleanse the world of the weak and the unworthy. It would leave waste and destruction in its wake; nothing would withstand it. Nothing would hold back the East Wind when it was called and came for the unworthy.

Yet Redbeard fought and Redbeard struggled, but he did not know what to do.

"Go on, try to shut it out!" The witch laughed, dancing with the wind, dancing like the wind, howling, dissolving.

"Shut out the wind?" Redbeard asked, terrified because the strong winds had already lifted his ship and made him sail the air, where he would be lost.

"Shut out your weakness!" came the answer in the ghostly voices of the storm. The witch disappeared, and the ghosts with her. Musgrave Manor burst into flames and they caught Redbeard and his ship. The fire was fuelled by the East Wind, the gust so strong that it would not let the pirate return to his ship, would not allow the ship to set sail to rescue the pirate and leave the cursed beach. Redbeard was so scared that he could think of no way to escape, so the flames took him and burned him to a crisp and the East Wind carried away his ashes and then Redbeard was no more.

But the East Wind blows on, still on the lookout, always on the search, and one day the East Wind will take us all."

* * *

Mycroft fell silent, almost captivated by his fairy tale himself. Almost.

"Is Redbeard dead now?" asked a timid Sherlock after a momentary pause.

"Yes," he said, "Redbeard is dead. But you are not."

"That is a sad story," Sherlock complained.

"It is what it is," he said. "Sherlock, do you know what Redbeard did wrong?"

His brother thought about that. With his eyes now well adjusted to the darkness, he could see his brother's forehead wrinkle with the effort.

"He let himself be guided by emotion instead of logic," he said, his slow but slowly learning brother.

"That is why the East Wind came and took him," Mycroft agreed. A compassionate brother might have patted Sherlock's curly hair now, or might have offered a hug. Mycroft wasn't one of those. He would teach Sherlock strength and Sherlock didn't need to be hugged for that. "Always remember that. The East Wind is still out there. Tell me, Sherlock, if you ever stood before Musgrave Hall, what would you do?"

"Solve the riddles with logic?" Sherlock asked.

Sighing, Mycroft shook his head. "These riddles were not meant to be solved. They were meant to frighten him. To make him sad. If you ever stand before Musgrave Hall, keep the doors shut. Do not enter. Sherlock, do you hear me? Never enter Musgrave Hall or the East Wind will come and get you!"

"I won't," Sherlock promised and now, groaning, Mycroft finally lifted his heavy, bulky body off his brother's bed. He really should do something about his body weight, he concluded. Some day.

When he was nearly at the door, Sherlock's soft laughter held him back. "I know what you did there, brother mine," Sherlock said out of the darkness of his room.

"Do you now? That is a surprise," he said and he genuinely was surprised.

"A room with a leash and collar? A furry demon hound? Rooms of mirrors and death and pending demise? Come on, it is so obvious."

"What is, dear brother?" He had made up the riddles as he told them. Had his inferior little brother truly spotted a pattern where he had not?

"I know Redbeard was our dog," Sherlock said and Mycroft was glad for the fact that his own face was shrouded in darkness. "I'm not stupid, you know. I know he was our dog. They had to put him down. But, you know, I'm not sad. Not anymore."

"You are not." Mycroft was at a loss for a good answer. Of course, they'd never had a dog. Father was allergic to dogs. Sherlock's mind was a riddle of its own. Logic and emotions mingled up in there to create one big heap of chaos, curious and fascinating and beyond comprehension for any reasoned intellect like his own.

"Don't you worry, though. I know now, Mycroft, but I am not sad. It was a stupid accident, but I killed him, didn't I? Somehow it was because of me that they had to put him down. I know it now by the way Mum and Pop look at me and that's why we moved here. But the doors are shut now, Mycroft. It isn't important now. It is what it is, right?"

Mycroft gulped down bile. "It is what it is," he answered. Then he left the room and left Sherlock to his night.

* * *

**Author's notes:**

**My congratulations if you have made it to the end of this little story in sanity. My consolations if you didn't. Either way, I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it. **

**This work is complete as it is, although I already have a rough idea for a sequel in mind, answering the question of how delighted Moriarty might have been if he ever laid hands on Mycroft's little fairy tale. If I do, I'll add it as a second chapter some day.**

**One last thing before you go: if you think you might have solved the last riddle, please don't post the answer as a review but send me a PM to avoid spoiling the fun for others. Thanks!**

**I hope to see you in more Missing Tales**

_Special thanks go to my Beta-Readers, who dared this adventure first and helped bolster my courage to post it for the public:_

Emmeebee

theusedfan411

mystery18blue

_Yeah, don't judge me, I really was unsure about this one, so I made a wide call for help, and they all answered immediately and gave unique insight! Thanks a lot for that. _


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